My Wars Are Laid Away in Books

by Alfred Habegger

  footnote 1: John Harley Warner, The Therapeutic Perspective: Medical Practice, Knowledge, and Identity in America, 1820–1885 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986) 62.

  Little Emily was two: LNN to END, [July–early August 1833, dated by Commencement and Maria Fanning Norcross’s 8-8-1833 birth], MDN to EdD, Dec. 1822, Ashmun to EdD (“‘Oh terque, quaterque beati’ are those that didn’t get their heads broke when I got my leg”), 9-24-1823, H; PP 52; EdD’s file of remedies, H; EdD to JN, 2-5-1838, J; Let 902. Amh Rec, 10-14-, 11-11-1885, reported that Dr. Joseph DeVore was suspected in the death of Harriet O. Merrill, who lived near ED on Maple Street.

  Father’s basic remedy: EDC to WAD, 5-10-1842, LNN to END, 11-11-[1833], LNN to EdD, postmarked 1-7-[1834? year inferred from reference to Colonel Barr in LNN to END, 12-3-1833], H. See also LNN to END, 2-28-[1834], H: “Your husband had much to say to me about being married about being crazy &c.”

  “watched”: See SFD to EdD, 12-17-1819, 1-2-1820, H. For EdD’s care of brother William, SFD, and a cousin, see PP 142, 178. Sue’s manuscript essay on nurses, 3–4, H, reveals that men were hired as watchers. Wolff’s claim that EdD showed little sympathy with suffering and that “during every severe illness some woman or other kept a ‘night watch’” (49–50) illustrates the tyranny of received ideas.

  “if any of you are sick”: EdD to END, 2-7-1837, H.

  “I would not neglect”: EdD to WAD, 5-26-1874, ED926 A. Cf. WAD to Olmsted, 5-29-1874, Olmsted Papers, Container 15.

  One reason Edward wanted: EdD to END, 5-19-1830, 9-7-1835, H; Hannah Terry to Mary Shepard, 9-12-[1835], Bolt 4:7. For other letters bearing on this trip, see SVN to END, 8-6-1835, SVN to LNN, 10-13-1835 (with note from LNN to END dated “Thursday P.M.”), H.

  In Amherst, having: EdD to END, 9-11-[1835], 7-1-1836, H.

  “but this visit”: EdD to END, 6-7-1829, H. In extenuation, EdD’s hope that Betsey “return with you & stay with us a while, for her health” shows he didn’t realize the gravity of her case.

  footnote 2: EdD to END, 1-3-1837 [1838], 2-25-1838, END to EdD, Friday [1-5-1838], Tuesday [4-3-1838], H.

  One of the fundamental: EdD to END, 2-25-, 2-9-1838, H.

  On July 3, 1831: First #1.

  Mrs. Dickinson entered: Book No. 1, 1826–1849, Records #2, 1826–1891, Amh Coll Ch; EdD to LNN, 11-21-1831, J.

  As for Edward: PP 85, 52–53, 104; EdD to END, 3-18-1838, H; Examining Committee Records, vol. 2, 11-11-1841, Bowd St Ch; Historical Manual of the South Church in Andover (Andover: Draper, 1859) 163; First #3, no. 821; Book No. 1, 7-18-1835, Amh Coll Ch; JAS to CDS, 11-12-1834, ED963 A. JAS and END joined Amherst’s First Church the same day.

  One ironic result: EdD to JN, 2-13-1832, J.

  “Now if you cant”: LNN to END, “Thursday eve” [12-20-1832], H. Dated by Deodatus Dutton’s death, New York Evening Post 12-17-1832.

  ran a notice: Hampshire Gazette 2-27-1833.

  The day after this announcement: Isaac G. Cutler, “List of Women Delivered,” J; END’s Bible; LNN to END, 5-29-, 5-25-[1833], H.

  Once again, the growing family: Hampshire Co. RD 71:89–90; “Col. David Mack, the Faithful Steward,” Tracts, vol. 12, no. 487; Deed of gift signed 6-29-1833, Hampshire Co. RD 70:203; Home 502.

  footnote 3: LNN to END, 2-28-[1834], H.

  From the beginning: LNN to END, 10-3-[1831], 8-3-[1832], “Thursday eve” [12-20-1832], H.

  Loring Norcross: Loring to END, 5-31-1828, H. Born 10-17-1808, Loring lost his father, William, in 1813. In 1816 his mother, Oril (Orril, Oral), married Daniel Burt, who died in 1823, leaving Loring again fatherless (Vital Records of Brimfield [Boston: NEHGS, 1931] 113, 227, 275; Joel W. Norcross, “The History and Genealogy of the Norcross Family,” 2:108, NEHGS). Records of JN’s guardianship, with the original 1813 appointment, are at Monson Historical Society.

  Uncertain it was “right”: LNN to END, 6-11-1833, H; JAS to CDS, 11-12-1834, ED963 A; Intentions of Marriage and Marriages, Book 2, 10-11-1834 (“Lorin Norcross and Lovina Norcross”), Monson Town Hall; Desc 206–207.

  Lavinia took another chance: LNN to END, 5-20-[1833], H. All information in this section about ED’s 1833 visit to Monson comes from LNN to END or EdD, 5-9,20,25,29 and 6-11, H.

  footnote 4: SVN to EdD and END, 2-18-1836, 5-1-1835, H; Leyda 1:31.

  “pat” read as “slap”: Leyda 1:21; Sewall 324.

  footnote 5: Wolff 59–61.

  “fond of her child”: EdD to END, 1-9-1838, H.

  In fall Lavinia wished: LNN to END, 10-30-1833, LNN to EdD, 4-5-1834, H.

  Although Congregationalists: First #1, 21, 188 (1834 Articles of Faith). According to “‘Infant Baptism,’” Sabbath School Visiter 9 (1841) 22, “the rite is falling into disuse in the Congregational churches.” A First Parish register dating from 1880 has ED baptized in 1831 but gives no month or day (First #5, 1). This vague, retroactive compilation clearly has less authority than earlier documents. “Amherst Births, Deaths, Marriages [1838–1854],” J, shows Vin but not WAD or ED as baptized. The same is true for the original church ledger, the one primary source. In 1831, as this ledger shows, several couples who had recently joined the church had their previous children baptized. Mary and John Sidney Adams joined in August, and in September had two children baptized. Horace and Alma Kellogg joined that summer, and in October had four children baptized. Lucretia and Morton Salman Dickinson joined in August, and in October had four children baptized. EdD’s cousin Nathan and wife, Mary Ann, joined in October, and the following July had three children baptized. Perhaps the reason the two older Dickinson children weren’t given the rite is that their father was still a nonmember: 1831 shows no retroactive baptisms in “divided” families (First #1, 10–13, 21).

  Meanwhile, Samuel Fowler: Bullard 119; “Report of Committee on Burying Yard,” 1.19 Committee Reports (1788–1838), Amherst Town Clerk; EdD to JN, 12-21-1833, J. On the Lane rebellion, see Gilbert H. Barnes & Dwight L. Dumond, Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimké Weld, and Sarah Grimké 1822–1844 (New York: Appleton-Century, 1934) 1:132–46; Benjamin P. Thomas, Theodore Weld: Crusader for Freedom (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1950) 43–44, 70–71; Lawrence Thomas Lesick, The Lane Rebels (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1980) 72, 128.

  Soon, it was time: LNN to END, 3-22-[1834], LNN to EdD, 4-5-1834 (“I suppose I never shall visit you again in the part you now occupy”), JAS to EdD, 5-2-1834, H; Hist 65. Leyda’s entry for 1-5-1833 (1:19) obviously belongs in 1834.

  As a structural: HSR; EdD to END, 1-3-1837 [1838], H. See also EdD to END, 1-5-1838, END to EdD, “Friday eve” [1-12-1838], H.

  Judging from a startlingly: EdD to JN, 12-21-1833, J; Amherst Town Records, vol. 2 (3-5-1832) 30, Town Hall vault; Amh Acad 193; “Copies of Records of Amherst College,” Trustees [General Files], box 1, Votes (Ms. copies), A.

  One month after this appointment: EdD to END, 9-7-1835, H; JN’s note in SVN to EdD and END, 11-26-1835, H. On 10-26-1835 JN sold eight shares in the Monson Woolen Manufacturing Co. for $4,000 (Monson Historical Society). Five days later he sold the Norcross house for $5,000 (Hampden Co. RD 95:447).

  In Amherst, the mania: David Junior and Samuel E. Mack to EdD, 6-16-1836, H. EdD’s earliest known purchase dates from before 9-20-1836 (Ottawa Co., MI, RD A:582). His acquisitions are hard to trace for two reasons: grantee indexes name only the first partner in a group buy, and a fire destroyed Kent County, MI, deeds in the 1870s.

  “So your Western”: JAS to EdD, 1-9-1835 [1836], David Junior and Samuel E. Mack to EdD, 6-16-1836, H; Hubbard Winslow, Christianity Applied to Our Civil and Social Relations (Boston: William Peirce, 1835) 174; LNN to EdD and END, “Sun. eve” [10-16,18-1836], H. LNN urged EdD and END to read Winslow’s book (letter of 12-14-1835, H).

  In Amherst, Edward’s land: Hampshire Co. RD 77:162, 166; EdD to JN, 3-3-1830, Monson Historical Society.

  Unlike Edward, whose: LNN to END, 5-29-[1833], EdD to END, 2-25-1838, H.

  In spite of the Dickin
sons’: Asa Bullard and LDB to EdD, 1-15-1836, SVN to EdD and END, 2-18-1836, LNN to EdD and END, 2-15-1836, H.

  “I would not that servile”: [Lydia Maria Child], The Frugal Housewife (Boston: Carter & Hendee, 1830) 103, EDR 4.2.3.

  As Edward’s letters home: EdD to END, 1-21-1838, H; John S. C. Abbott, The Mother at Home; or the Principles of Maternal Duty (Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1833) 60, 95, 93, 101, EDR 1.2.7.

  This two-phase sequence: Let 475.

  In fact, the forty-year-old: Let 475; TWH, “A Shadow,” Atlantic Monthly 26 (July 1870) 4–10; Let 612; EdD to END, 2-9-1838, H.

  We have a very revealing: EdD to END, 9-11-[1835] (cf. EdD to END, 7-1-1836), H. A few years later Helen Fiske’s mother dreamed she lost her trunk while traveling (DWVF to HHJ [transcript], 10-23,24-1842, HHJ Papers 2:1).

  Although most of Dickinson’s: Let 928 (PF117, first excision as in ED878 A); Let 576.

  “When I was a baby”: Let 515.

  Chapter 6

  One Sunday in 1839: EdD to END, 1-12-1839, H.

  Before Emily Dickinson went: EdD to END, 9-7-1835, H; Reports defining district boundaries, 1.19 Committee Reports (1788–1838), Amherst Town Clerk; Minutes for 6-27-1826, 9-17-1829, 4-24-1847, Amherst–School Committee–West Middle District 1826–1864, J; #242, Amherst Historical Commission–Historic Resources, J. For a possible teacher, see Paulina Sellon–Bills and Receipts, J. On textbooks, see Jones 296–98; Lowenberg.

  The reason for thinking: Amherst Town Records, vol. 2 (3-5-1832) 30, Town Hall vault; Northampton Courier 9-14-, 9-28-1841; Life and Works of Horace Mann (Cambridge: Published for the Editor, 1867) 2:212–16. MDB’s claim that the Dickinson “children went to the public schools like all the other children of their time in New England towns” (LL 15) sounds typically slapdash, yet it is unlikely ED went to the leading alternative, a tiny school run by Emily and Julia Nelson (see CDS to EdD, 5-12-1835, A) and patronized by the Hitchcock and Fiske families. The detailed retrospects of EH Jr (Notebook “B+,” 15–16, 35, Doc Hitch 7:26) and HHJ (“The First Time,” St. Nicholas 4 [May 1877] 473–79) do not even glance at ED. The Emily Dickinson listed in Amherst Female Seminary’s 1834–35 catalog (J) was not ED, who always had a middle initial in catalogs and other public or official documents. Still operating in 1837 (Hampshire Gazette 4-19-1837), this couldn’t have been the school she and WAD both attended (EdD to END, 1-17-1838, H).

  Curiously, the one point: EdD to END, 9-7-1835, LNN to EdD and END, 12-14-1835, EdD to END, 1-5-, 1-17-1838, H.

  Because of the sickness: END to EdD, Friday [1-5-], Sunday [1-21-1838], EdD to END, 2-16-, 3-14-1838, H.

  Other parents: EH Jr, Notebook “B+,” 13–14, 26, Doc Hitch 7:26. Gillett 29 recalled skating as flatly disallowed for girls.

  Some of the general assumptions: EdD to END, 2-9-, 1-9-1838, H; Revised Statutes of . . . Massachusetts (Boston State Printers: 1836) 219.

  Emily’s first letter: fMS Am 1118.4 (L53), H. A facsimile is in World 22.

  Parley’s Magazine: EdD to END, 2-16-1838, H; “Something about the Month of February,” Parley’s Magazine 6 (1838) 52.

  Edward’s purpose in bringing: John A. Vaughan, Mistakes of Parents no. 296 (New York: American Tract Society, n.d.), Bianchi Coll (collected in Tracts, vol. 8, no. 16); EdD to END, 2-25-, 2-9-1838, H.

  “Against Scoffing”: Isaac Watts, Divine and Moral Songs for Children (New York: American Tract Society, n.d.) 29; St. Armand 131, 333.

  her Church’s Sabbath School: In 1833–1834 the superintendent was William S. Tyler, later professor of Greek; in 1834–1835, Ebenezer Burgess, later missionary to India. There was a class for children who had “scarcely learned to read”; George Boltwood attended at three and a half (William S. Tyler, ms. articles on Amherst Sabbath School and on George Boltwood, Tyler Papers 5:5). During an 1836 campaign “to revive” the Sabbath School, all parents were visited and urged to send their children (First #1, 4-14-, 4-29-1836).

  “I believe the love of”: Let 372. Misdated by editors, this letter, L230, was probably written in late 1879 or early 1880. If the “Miss W” of the printer’s copy (FN/ED 402) was Maria Whitney, the letter can’t have been sent in winter 1860–1861 (Let [1894] 236) or early March 1861 (Let 372): she didn’t enter the Dickinson world till mid-1862 (Chap. 18) and can’t be linked to the Norcross cousins before 1875 (MW to James L. Whitney, Sunday [3-6-1875, misdated 3-31-1875], WDW Papers 22:593). The “Friday class” was a weekly religious discussion group in Concord’s Unitarian First Parish. The experimental informal meetings began in October 1879 and were shifted to Thursday in 1883. “Well attended” from the start, they proved unusually “social and conversational”; Ellen Emerson was a regular participant. The churches previously attended by the Norcrosses, Boston’s Bowdoin Street and Cambridgeport’s Prospect Street societies, both orthodox, do not seem to have had any kind of “Friday class.” Concord Freeman 10-9-1879, 11-24-1882, 10-19-1883; First Parish in Concord, Annual Reports for years ending 4-1-1880 (4), 4-1-1881 (3–4), 4-1-1883 (8), Concord Free Public Lib; Emerson 5-4-1881, 1-18-1883.

  Another of Watts’s moral: Watts, Divine and Moral Songs 26; Let 701 (spatial arrangement based on Ms Am 1118.5 [B177], H).

  footnote 1: Bullard 72, 89, 90, 117, 9, 128–29; James Avery Smith, The History of the Black Population of Amherst (Boston: NEHGS, 1999) 70.

  sending “the Sabbath School Visiter”: EdD to END, 2-7-1837, H.

  The January issue: the monthly stories are from Sabbath School Visiter 5 (1837) 7–11, 29–31, 63–64, 84–85, 97–98, 135–37, 145–46, 157–59, 176, 201–202.

  footnote 2: Sabbath School Visiter 9 (1841) 165.

  “the separations death occasions,” “utterly worthless”: Sabbath School Visiter 9 (1841) 124, 173.

  In the Dickinsons’ commerce: EdD to END, 1-16-1839, H.

  Tellingly, Emily was: EdD to END, 2-9-1838, H (the “little children” were Louisa, two, and William, five months [Other Bullards 18]); END to EdD, Tuesday [4-3-1838], H. Other letters reflecting the Dickinson-Bullard relationship are LNN to END, 4-12-, 12-14-1835, Asa Bullard and/or LDB to EdD, 1-15-1836, 9-11-1837, May 1838, END to EdD, Sun [1-7-1838], H; see also Home 318.

  In the mid-1830s: Loring to EdD, 5-12-1835, H; CDS to parents and EDC, letter begun 6-15-1835, ED953 A; SVN to LNN, 9-13-1835, LNN to EdD and END, 11-20-1835 (misdated 1838 by H), CDS to EdD, 4-25-1836, David Junior and Samuel E. Mack to EdD, 6-16-1836, H.

  footnote 3: Christopher Clark, The Roots of Rural Capitalism: Western Massachusetts 1780–1860 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990) 137.

  In the winter of 1837–1838: EdD to END, 2-13-, 2-16-1838, H; Hampshire Gazette 2-14-1838.

  footnote 4: Hampshire Co RD 83:8.

  The news from Ohio: CDS to EdD, 5-12-1835, H; Hist Amh Coll 245–46; JAS to EdD, 8-28-1834, H.

  In 1836 the former Squire: SFD Jr to JAS, 9-6-1836, A; END’s Bible.

  The shocked responses: LDB to EdD, May 1838, H; CDS and MDN to LGD and EDC, 4-29-1838, ED956 A.

  Samuel’s college accounts: Home 19–20; Excerpts from Trustees Records of Western Reserve College, MTB Papers 101:559; CDS and MDN to LGD and EDC, 4-29-1838, A; CDS to EdD, 5-12-1835, H; EdD to END, 1-12-1839, H; George William Montague, Montague Family of America (Amherst: Press of J. E. Williams, 1886); EDE (Dandurand) 76; LGD to EdD, 9-22-, 12-19-1839, H.

  footnote 5: See MDN and LGD to EdD, 3-15-1821, H.

  “It would be best”: LGD to EdD, 9-22-1839, MDN to EdD, 5-3-1835, SVN to EdD and END, 2-18-1836, LNN to END, 10-26-[1838], H; END’s Bible; EDC, annual reports for 1875–1878, Home for Aged Females (Worcester: Press of Chas. Hamilton, 1882), AAS.

  The Dickinson girls visited: EdD to JN, 9-6-1838, J; Let 567; EDE (Dandurand) 76; Lucien Marcus Underwood, The Underwood Families of America (Lancaster, Pa.: New Era, 1913) 1:180–82; Francis H. Underwood, Quabbin: The Story of a Small Town (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1893) 66.

  The boom years ended: EdD to JN, 5-16-1837, J; Hubbard Winslow, Rejoice with Tremblin
g (Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1837) 9.

  The resulting depression: Boston directories, 1835–1839; LNN to END, Friday [11-9-1838], Loring to EdD, 10-22-1839, H; Hampden County Probate Court, Estate of JN, Case 8347, will.

  In Brooklyn and New York: NYC directories, 1833/34–1839/40; EdD to END, 1-16-1839, H; Luke Sweetser to JAS, 11-2-1839 (ts), MTB Papers 102:570; JAS to EdD, 11-8-1839, H; Mark Haskell Newman to JAS, 11-13-1839, ED982 A; Home 506 (based on Carp 328–29); First #3, nos. 1060, 1061 (JAS and CDS joined 4-30-1841, were dismissed 1842); JAS, “To My Wife,” ED964 A. JAS’s absence from New York City and Brooklyn directories for 1840/41 (canvassing completed by summer) puts him in Massachusetts by May or June 1840. A daughter, Mary Newman Sweetser, was born there 8-11-1840 (1850 federal census, Brooklyn, ward 3, dwelling 958; Sweetser 122). He reappears in Brooklyn in the 1842/43 directory as “Sweetser Jn A, clerk.” By 3-3-1843, as a letter from Abel Sweetser discloses, he had “gone into business again . . . I hope your trials in your children & property have been truly sanctified to you” (to JAS [ts], MTB Papers 102:570).

  one-issue representative: EdD to END, 1-17-1838, H.

  At this period: George S. Boutwell, Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (New York: McClure, Phillips, 1902) 1:71; EdD to END, 2-13-1838, H; Journal of the MA House (1838) 443, Documents Printed by Order of the House (1838), no. 45, Journal of the MA House (1839) 214–15, Documents Printed by Order of the Senate (1839), no. 27, MA State Lib. See also Remin 289; Hist Amh Coll 262–63.

  “imagine[d] I could tell him”: END to EdD, Saturday [1-19-1839], H.

  Several months before: First #1, from 9-14-1837 to 1-1-1838; EdD to END, 1-17-, 1-21-, 2-9-1838, END to EdD, Sunday [1-7-1838], 2-16-[1838], H.

  What particularly weighed: EdD to END, 1-21-1838 (cf. 3-18-1838), H; Let 920.

  “passed in a wilderness”: JL/ED.

  Given the good working relations: EdD to END, 2-16-1838, END to EdD, Sunday [2-18-1838], Wednesday [2-7-1838], H.